OPTIMAL SEGMENTATION OF PROJECTS - SCHEDULE AND COST CONSIDERATIONS

In certain types of projects, the same sequence of activities is perfo rmed throughout the various physical parts of the project (e.g., road construction). By dividing the project into segments and working in pa rallel, the duration of the project can be reduced, with a resulting i ncrease in direct costs. in this paper we consider the problem of find ing the optimal number of segments that minimizes total project cost, for linear cost and duration functions. We begin by formulating and so lving a mathematical programming model for homogeneous projects, and, by using the concept of work contents, we extend the solution to non-h omogeneous projects.